PGA DFS Core Plays: WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational
Top-ranked grinder, Notorious, breaks down his favorite daily fantasy golf plays at various salary ranges for the coming week’s golf tournament. Who should you be building around? Find out below.
3M Open Review
It was another week of absolute carnage and one that was very frustrating from a player pool perspective. I talked up and was over-weight on many of the top value plays (Max Homa, Richy Werenski, Talor Gooch, Charl Schwartzel, and Cameron Davis), but there were too many land mines at the top. Paul Casey, Lucas Glover, and Doc Redman all missed the cut as core plays and they were just a few of the many that didn’t come through. While I didn’t have much to sweat on Sunday, the tournament provided a solid finish. Michael Thompson hadn’t won since 2013 and was able to hold off a number of chargers on the weekend. Tony Finau was so close yet again, but he stumbled a bit on the weekend and finished in a tie for third.
WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational Preview
If you are tired of missed cuts ruining your lineups, then you should be ecstatic for this week. The WGC events feature limited fields with all golfers guaranteed to play four rounds (barring a withdrawal). With the PGA Championship next week, most of the top golfers in the world are set to tee it up in Memphis at TPC Southwind. This used to be a full-field event with a cut, but that changed in 2019. The course is a Par 70 that measures over 7,200 yards. Historically, the fairways have been hard to hit, as have the greens. This creates more scrambling opportunities and puts a larger emphasis on the short game. We’ve seen big names win here in the past, as the last four winners have been Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, and Daniel Berger twice.
Approach play is always critical if you are going to contend and that’s no different at this course. I focused most of my attention on ball strikers last week, but scrambling will play a much bigger role in Memphis. Putting is always hard to predict, but I’m bumping up strokes gained putting and strokes gained around the green in my model (which you can check out in my model breakdown video). From a roster construction standpoint, you can certainly make a case to take more chances this week. Without a cut, chasing upside over safety is a great strategy in tournaments. This is one of the only weeks all year where we can feel very confident in the $6,000 golfers sticking around for the weekend.